It had been nearly two weeks now since the ribs on his left side had been damaged during the massage.

How was he to know that face down while she walked up and down his back, that something would unexpectedly go “pop.” It would on the face of it be funny, if it were not funny in reality. No sympathy from the site clinic, just a wry grin from the Doc with those unspoken words “I told you so!”

The first week was the worst: breathing painful when lying down, I succumbed in the early hours to dozing off upright in a chair. Drink did not help either, nor inadequate painkillers or a magic spray.

There is however a corpus of belief that if you are tired enough, you will sleep. More like a somnolent phantasmagoria, a semi-stasis existence almost spiritual up against the half opened window and the damp warmth of a Vietnamese night encroaching into ones being.

The war had not been that long ago in real terms, and many a restless spirit roamed the rice fields or garnered the night air. There had been many, not buried; just blown apart or left rotting in the Mekong Delta, or on some cloud shrouded hill inland from the coast. They believed, he had been told, that if interment rites were not observed, then the spirit was not at peace. One sole American, also on camp, once let it slip that he always felt as if someone was in the room with him.

It was that kind of country. You thought you knew it, but the longer you stayed, the chasm of your ignorance in the face of their simplicity was both revealing and frightening.